By Mr. Means:
Q. Wanted him to realize the situation?
A. Realize the situation they were in, and make a more weighty responsibility on them, for having taken it by force, if they would let it be destroyed. I told him so. Says he, "All I am afraid of is, when the hands stop work, they will hang around these damned doggeries and get drunk, and come in here and create a disturbance, and lead the thing into trouble." Says he, "If we just stopped them, I would not be a bit afraid of any property being burned." I told them they had just as good a right to stop doggeries as they had to stop a railroad, the rule would work both ways. If you could take possession of one class of property, why not take possession of the other. I talked with them, and I concluded I would go around and notify the saloons to stop myself. I saw it was the best we could do under the circumstances, and we did notify them, and they obeyed and stopped until the next Monday or Tuesday afterwards. I used a little strategy with them. I told them the mayor had instructed me to stop them, and under the law if they did anything to aid, abet, or encourage riot, they were responsible; that the sale of liquor might have that tendency, and they appeared to be cautious, and shut up their places.
Q. They shut up because you told them the mayor had ordered them; it was not this Boss Ammon?
A. No, sir; it was not Boss Ammon, it was Mayor Phillips and me had talked about that, and thought best to keep down riot in every form we could, under the excited state of affairs.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Did Ammon and his men who were acting in concert with them, make any effort to compel saloons from selling whisky?
A. No, sir; I don't think he did anything at all in the matter.
Q. You say that Mr. Ammon remarked, that he could stop all this rioting and strike by a single dispatch, if their terms were complied with. Did he say what those terms were?
A. He was going on to state the terms at the time Mayor Phillips came down, and the mayor arriving there he hadn't got through with his statement. So far as his statement to me was concerned it was, that the men that had been discharged would all be returned to their positions again, and re-instated at the old wages, that double-headers should be taken off—he was going on making a statement of this kind when Mayor Phillips arrived and interrupted him. I don't know what all he would have stated. It was a part of it, that the men should all be re-instated that had been discharged, at their former wages, with an assurance that they would remain, and double-headers taken off the road.